Share via

Belfast will be buzzing when one of its own boxes for the world title in a specially built arena, says Ron Lewis

Carl Frampton relishes fight week in Belfast, but it has never quite felt like this. Tomorrow night, in a specially built arena in the city’s dockside, Frampton will aim to become a world champion and the whole of Northern Ireland will be backing him.

Barry McGuigan, his promoter, manager and mentor, was a poster boy for sanity during the Troubles in the Eighties; Frampton is a face of the new Northern Ireland.

Some 16,000 fans will be packed into the arena in the Titanic Quarter when Frampton, trained by McGuigan’s son, Shane, challenges Kiko Martínez for the IBF super-bantamweight title,